Atheists and Prayer

[Rayaan]

Just wanted to get some thoughts on the following two questions:


1. Have any of you atheists here while you were an atheist, prayed to God (or gods) in certain circumstances in your life, especially like in desperate times or in troublesome times?

2. A small percentage of atheists said that they do pray (at least weekly or monthly) even though they don't believe in God. Are those people really atheists, then?

But there are sizable differences between atheists/agnostics and other unaffiliated adults in frequency of prayer. About eight-in-ten atheists and agnostics seldom or never pray (82%). People who describe their religion as "nothing in particular," however, are almost evenly divided between those who seldom or never pray (48%) and those who pray either daily (27%) or at least once a month (24%).

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http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones...-religion/

[max-greece]

Newsflash: People can be inconsistent.

Rumour has it there are some theists who break the rules of their own religion too.

Personally I haven't prayed since childhood - depending on how you define prayer of course - throughts like, on heading home to the wife "please be wearing the red underwear when I get home," are similar to prayers but they are not aimed at a deity.

I'd be quite put off by God wearing my wife's red underwear I think.

[KichigaiNeko]

Do parking gods count?

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As in "come on parking gods, we need a parking space"

Not aimed at any deity and certainly not involving ritual.

[Esquilax]

When I was a kid- before I took up the specific mantle of atheism as a label- I used to pray in a very vague, deistic sense. Once the uselessness of such an action became apparent to me I quickly stopped, and that was rather the end of that.

Frankly, I guess I was a deist for most of my childhood, before I learned enough to abandon that line of thinking.

Mind you, given that atheism is only lack of belief in a god, and not disbelief, I suppose one could pray to any possible god that might be around to hear. It seems pointless to me, but an agnostic atheist still has room in their mind for the possibility, so it's maybe not that crazy an idea that one would "pray," in a sense.

[WesOlsen]

Pretty much what these guys said.

Praying around exam time at school, actually got a good batch of GCSEs but then wasn't sure whether to attribute that to prayer or simply all the revision i'd done. By University age i'd dropped all pretence of being a proper christian and by my early 20s I had firmly transitioned to the 'agnostic' realm.

Had I been brainwashed with hardcore christianity, as opposed to 'soft' christianity as a child, things could very well be different. Childhood indoctrination is the main tool for propogation and i'm thankful if nothing else that my parents were not ultra-observant. Saying grace and carol service at christmas weren't 'in my face' 24/7 unlike the rituals present within more observant christian circles (and other religions of course, particularly Islam). I was gifted with a non-faith affiliated, state (comprehensive) school education like about 2/3rds of kids in the UK, which meant that despite some lords prayer in assembly every now and again, the religious education classes were regulated and subject to OFSTED (a regulatory body) inspections which meant they HAD to teach about all religions and were not allowed to go ballistic with one single religion. Faith schools in this country on the other hand are given the freedom to teach whatever they want religion wise, even when that clashes with their pitifully inadequate 'science' classes. Richard Dawkin's faith school menace is a great little documentary available on youtube and that, showing a Muslim 'science' teacher at a faith school, HERE IN THE UK, who was unable to explain why there are still monkeys on the planet if we evolved from earlier monkeys. If this is the standard of science education in our faith schools then entire generations of children are utterly doomed. Children should not be brainwashed with religion, they should learn the hardcore facts about the sciences and ALL religions, decide whether they want to do some harmless prayer as children, then when they enter adulthood they can simply seek out more religion and prayer if they feel the need to. The rights of children are never factored in to any religious or educational matters, everyone seems to forget that the parents aren't the only ones with 'rights', especially when children are too young and vulnerable to resist theist indoctrination. Were the children to be whisked away to live in some weird minority cult in the desert then it would be child abuse, but when they're at a state funded faith-school in the UK and believe things like 'humans can't evolve from monkeys because there are still monkeys around today' and 'fresh water can't mix with salt water' it's apparently ok, because of the parent's 'rights'.

Any way, this has drifted off in to a rant about education So no, I don't pray any more, not for a long time, for reasons no doubt evident in every post I make. Anyone who engages in systematic prayer almost certainly can't be an atheist by definition. They're probably just 'undecided' rather than people like us who have sat and thought about everything clearly, and decided that we are firmly 'without belief'.

[Napoléon]

I remember one time when I was a kid I prayed for a McDonalds for my dinner. Lo and behold my mom brought home a Maccies from work the same day. I could of took this as a sign from god, but even at the age of like 10 I still knew it was just a fucking coincidence.

[pocaracas]

The only time I remember... praying, let's call it... was at gym class, I had to do a back flip and, just for kicks, I decided to put my hands together, look up and then... close my eyes and flip backwards...
As with all my back flips... it didn't go straight, but I survived, I guess...

[c172]

I love to meditate, and sometimes, if I'm on a bus, for instance, I'll look like I'm in prayer, head bowed and hands clasped. But, no, prayer, to me, is giving up on reality.

[kirolo]

I did pray, once, about 8 months ago. I begged, pleaded, bargained, to whatever/whoever may be there listening...during the darkest moment of my life. I would say that if there were a god who heard me and understood me, s/he would have known how sincere and serious I was. I figure there is either no god, or s/he doesn't give a shit. Still an atheist even though I prayed that one time. I felt really super silly the next morning.

[downbeatplumb]

I don't pray I may say "jesus christ" if I stub my toe or something but this is just a substitute for "fuck" so not praying.

Why would I pray? I do not think that it works.